The South Island is the place to be. It has beautiful beaches at Golden Bay and along the west coast, great hiking, and one unique small town after another. The south island is on the short list of places outside the U.S.--along with Cape Town and Sydney--where I could live.

I spent a couple of nights in Takaka at Barefoot Backpackers which celebrated its first anniversary with its new owners having a cookout at the beach under a full moon. It was at Barefoot that I met Julia from Germany, Sabrina from Vancouver and Felix from Germany. We hiked together and then drove up Golden Bay to Collingwood to check out the northern most part of the bay. We also celebrated Julia’s birthday on February 9 with a pasta and mussels dinner that we made (Felix did most of the cooking) and some cake.

I went my own way after a night in Collingwood and drove along the west coast to Fox Glacier. I took a couple of days off from driving and relaxed and took in the little town and the glacier.

Then I drove further south down Highway 6 along the coast to Queenstown. The scenery along this stretch of highway is the most beautiful I’ve seen on this trip. And that’s saying something after traveling to 24 other countries and logging almost 50,000 miles of travel so far the past 10 months. My five-hour drive to Queenstown became an eight-hour drive because I kept rubber necking and stopping to take photos. I couldn’t believe how pretty it was.

Queenstown is a nice small town on a bay. It’s the adventure capital of New Zealand. You can bungee jump, paraglide, skydive and do about anything else you can think of in Qtown. Lots of fun restaurants and bars, too.

I’ll continue to head south to Stewart Island but I’ll be back up in this area again on February 22 when I hike Milford Track for four days. I’m very excited. Only 40 independent trampers get to hike the track at a time and the reservations are booked solid for several months (sometimes a year) in advance, but I found a way to get a slot through the Department of Conservation and I’ll be out there on “the finest walk in New Zealand” in about a week. Never give up on what you want! Life is full of possibilities and there’s always a way to make what you want happen.

Next stop: Stewart Island

            A year from now you may wish you started from today.

                                        -- Karen Lamb